Steerpike was aware, directly he had entered the terrible room, that he was behaving strangely. He could have stopped himself at any moment. But to have stopped himself would have been to have stopped a valve – to have bottled up something which would have clamoured for release. For Steerpike was anything but inhibited. His control that had so seldom broken had never frustrated him. In one way that this new expression had need of an outlet he gave himself up to whatever his blood dictated. He was watching himself, but only so that he should miss nothing. He was the vehicle through which the gods were working. The dim primordial gods of power and blood.
There at his feet were the decomposing relics, the purple of their dresses hanging over the ribs in clotted folds, the skulls protruding horribly, their sockets staring at the ceiling. No less than had been their vanished faces, these skulls were identical save that across a single socket some spider, fastidious in his craftsmanship, had spun a delicate web. At its centre struggled a fly, so that in a way a kind of animation had come to either Cora or to Clarice.
In some kind of way the Doctor, though he could not understand, was able to gain an inkling as to what was happening in Steerpike’s mind, as the skewbald homicide began to strut like a cockerel about the bodies of the women he had imprisoned, humiliated and starved to death. The Doctor could see that Steerpike was by no means mad in any accepted sense for every now and then he would repeat a number of high stepping paces as though to perfect them. It was as though he were identifying himself with some archetypal warrior, or fiend. A fiend, which although it had no sense of humour, had a ghastly gaiety – a kind of lethal lightness that struck at the very heart of the humanities; struck at it, darted at it, played about it jabbing here and there, as though with a blade of speargrass.
When Flay and the Doctor, in their different ways, saw what was happening in the room they were both aware that Titus should not be with them. He was no child, but this was no scene for a boy. But there was nothing they could do. For them to separate would be criminally unwise. He could never in any event have found his way back alone. That as yet there had been no movement on their part to disturb the criminal was fortunate, but this deathly silence, in which the only sound was that of Steerpike’s footsteps, could not last for ever.
The Doctor was appalled, but at the same time, as a man of high intelligence and curiosity he was fascinated by what he saw. Not so Flay. An eccentric himself he despised and abhorred any form of eccentricity in others and what he was now witnessing had the effect of all but blinding him with a kind of bourgeois rage. Only in one thing was he happy – that the upstart had unmasked himself and that from now onwards the battle was joined in earnest.
His small eyes were fixed upon his enemy. His neck was thrust out like a turtle’s. His long beard trembled as it hung forward on his chest. His forest knife shook in his hand.
It was not the only weapon that was shaking. The short heavy poker in Titus’ clenched fist was far from steady. The young earl was quite frankly terrified by what he saw. An area of solid ground had given way beneath his feet and he had fallen into an underworld of which he had had no conception. A place where a man can pace like a cock about the ribs and skulls of his victims. A place where the air was rank with their corruption.
The Doctor was gripping his arm to steady him, and the grip tightened suddenly. Steerpike had stopped for a moment to re-tie his shoelace. When this was completed he rose from his knee and stood on tip-toe where he remained poised, his head thrown back. Then he dropped his heels and flexed his knees and at the same time turning his toes outwards, he raised his arms to his side, and with his elbows bent at right angles, he began to stamp, his fists clenched at the height of his shoulders. The sound of his feet was very loud and close.
He was in the posture of some earthish dancer, but he soon tired of this strange display – this throw-back to some savage rite of the world’s infancy. He had given himself up to it for those few moments, in the way that an artist can be the ignorant agent of something far greater and deeper than his conscious mind could ever understand. But as he strutted, his knees bent, his feet turned outwards, his body and head erect, his elbows crooked, and his hands clenched, he had enjoyed the novelty of what he was doing. He was amused at this peculiar need of his body; that it wished to stamp, to strut, to rear on tip-toes, to sink upon the heels – and all because he was a murderer – all this intrigued him, titillating his brain, so that, now, as he ceased to stamp, and sank into a dusty chair, the muscles of his throat went through the contractions that form laughter – but no sound came.
